This invention relates generally to apparatus for mounting electronics components and particularly to apparatus for mounting components in a home system electronics system.
Modular electronics has long had a requirement to mount different products (often from different manufactures) in close proximity to one another. The classic example of this is the telephone 19" rack. This standard (EIA-1310) allows arbitrary electronic pieces to be mounted in a vertical rack, so long as they adhere to the width requirements and the location of mounting holes. The heights may vary by increments of 1.75". This standard has long fulfilled the needs of telephone companies, cable companies, and electronic instrument manufactures. However, the size and inherent cost of this system restricts it to commercial use in an open room.
The size issue was directly addressed by the DIN-rail mounting system. Featureless rails mount modular electronics side by side. Designed for use inside machine tools, this standard has the positive attributes of excellent modularity and inherent low cost of the rail. The disadvantages of DIN-rail mounts are the complexity of the latch on the electronics and a rather narrow support area. For attaching wires to screw terminals, this is not a problem. but the support is insufficient for using telephone type punch-down tools. The force of the tool to push wires into insulation-displacement connectors and then cut the excess wire is quite high.
A home system must be part of the home's infrastructure. It must accommodate a variety of mounting environments. An enclosure that may be surface mounted in an attic or basement can have an almost arbitrary size and shape. However, in many places, being built-in means being inside a wall. The most common construction that must be accommodated is that of 2.times.4 vertical studs placed on 16" centers. To be mounted in this type of wall makes restrictions on width and depth of the enclosure and subsequently on the electronics inside.
Home system electronics is an area that needs an appropriate mounting solution. "Structured wiring" systems are just now making changes to how homes are wired. These systems have all of the communication wiring in a home terminate in a single "service center" enclosure. This includes telephone wiring, TV coax, speaker wiring and now data wiring. These wires run from various rooms in the house and are to be terminated at connectors or electronic devices inside this enclosure. If terminated at a connector, the wires may then be jumpered or cross-connected to different devices. For example, a wall-plate in a bedroom may have an RJ45 connector on it and CAT-5 cable running back to a similar RJ45 connector inside the service center. Now, by jumpering from the service center connector to the appropriate device, an installer may turn that bedroom jack into a telephone port, an Ethernet port for the home data network, or a high-speed Internet access port, such as DSL or ISDN. Future services will deliver entertainment digitally. A jack may have a telephone connected today and a television in five years. In a structured wiring system, the personality of the house wiring may be changed by adding electronics and changing the jumpers. A mechanical mounting system is needed to allow this ability to change.